


The I in FBI

by ishie



Category: Big Bang Theory, The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-24
Updated: 2010-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:19:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So this was Agent Sheldon Cooper...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The I in FBI

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "Fox Mulder" on the [Paradox-o-rama Fiction Friday thing](http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1163526.html). Revised and expanded into my 2010 Big Bang Big Bang fic [Nothing Important Happened Today](http://archiveofourown.org/works/117108).

"Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted!"

Penny already knew the guy was a genius, certified and all, but she'd thought the infamous nickname that dogged every mention of him was about his chosen field of investigation and not his personality.

 _Thought_. Maybe _hoped_ was a better word.

Other than that one muffled, less than gracious greeting, there was no other response from behind the closed door. Penny knocked again. Her knuckles grazed the edge of the battered black name tag stuck to the door at a weird angle, with what looked like black electrical tape. There was a corner of it, folded over and hardly even sticky, just visible under one skewed corner. She picked at it with her pinky nail and wondered if she would be here long enough to have to do the same with her own nametag. If she even got a nametag.

She tried again. "Agent Cooper? I was told to report here after lunch."

Nothing. Not even another deflection. Penny rolled her eyes and hiked up the waistband of her skirt again — apparently new-job nerves were a better diet than that Nutrisystem crap she kept wasting her money on. At least nerves didn't taste as bad as the chocolate cake's weird aftertaste.

The door handle moved easily under her hand and she stopped short and gave it a suspicious look. Would he have booby-trapped the door to keep out prying eyes? After all, it didn't seem possible that he was unaware of who she was, or why she was there.

Penny took a step back and looked around the hallway. Other than the elevator around the corner that was still rumbling its way back upstairs from the basement level where it had deposited her, there was no noise except for the buzz of fluorescent lights. The linoleum under her feet and the off-white walls gleamed in the sickly artificial light, just as clean and new as if they'd been installed the week before. It didn't look like this floor got much traffic, or at least not this part. At the other end of the corridor she thought maybe it was a different story, but back here it was just her, some dusty shelves, and the crazy man behind door number one.

"Oh, what the hell," Penny muttered. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and twisted the handle. When she pushed open the door, the office was as dark as a cave, with only a weak desk lamp on in the far corner, and a steady bluish glow spilling out of a doorway about halfway back along the wall.

"Agent Cooper?" she called, squinting into the gloom. There was a desk overflowing with maps and folders, with an ugly old computer monitor shoved back against the wall with a dozen post-its clinging to its glass front. The outline of another desk was just visible in the shadows of the opposite corner.

And every available surface was covered in paper: hanging on the walls, from the filing cabinets, stacked on top and all over the floor, stuck to the tiny window high up on one wall so that they blocked out whatever tiny amount of light was trying to struggle through.

"I've just been assigned to you," Penny continued. "I'm Agent—"

A man in a wheeled chair burst through the doorway, papers fluttering on their tacks in his wake. Penny ground one heel into the floor and tensed her shoulders.

So this was Agent Sheldon Cooper, degrees out the yin-yang, Violent Crimes golden boy and washout, so on and so forth. He looked a little on the scrawny side, even more than in the ID photos she'd seen and the one glimpse she had of him when a fellow recruit had pointed him out at Quantico. Still, though, his entrance was aggressive and Penny hadn't slacked at all on her defensive tactics training. Highest mark in more than five years, even. Hell, she'd flipped the instructor, a big tough ex-SWAT captain, hard enough to break his nose on more than one occasion.

"I know who you are," he said. He'd overshot his mark a little, it seemed, or else he didn't care what kind of picture it presented to do an awkward crab-walk to move the chair back into the circle of light from the next room. Or as close as he could get under his own power.

With a scowl down at the floor protector pad that got in the way of the tiny plastic wheels, he stood and kicked the chair out of the way.

"You're the rookie they've brought in to spy on me."

Cooper towered over her, a glower fixed on his face. He crossed his arms and tried to ... well, there was no other word for it. He might have only had about five pounds on her — ten, if she could ever manage to put down the cheesecake fork — but he was definitely trying to loom.

Too bad for him, though, that Penny had just spent more than two hours trapped in a windowless, featureless office with Director Fat-head and the Creepy Smoker giving her the third degree and trying their level best to intimidate her into being their rat. Whatever little patience she had for putting up with stupid macho crap had run out about half an hour into the interview, and the next ninety minutes had been an exercise in trying not to grind her teeth into powder or put her fist through their smug faces.

God, she really needed to find some coffee, too.

"Look," she snapped, smacking him in the chest with her transfer paperwork as she did, "I don't like this any more than you do, _Agent_ Moo— Cooper."

His nostrils flared. "I'm not crazy."

She stopped him with an outflung hand as she stalked over to the dusty desk in the corner and snapped on the light. "Yeah, I know. They showed me your test results."

Cooper settled a little, or at least stopped bristling like a feral cat. Penny couldn't help poking him. Just to see how fast his back went up again, that was all. Testing boundaries and whatever other crap she hadn't paid much attention to in the team-building seminars.

"Your mom had you tested, though? Really?"

The glare he leveled at her was hot enough to melt a bowl of ice cream on a muggy August day in the District, at the very least. Penny smiled.

Oh, yeah. This was going to be _fun_.


End file.
